Goddess Rising (39 page)

Sam must have walked for at least half an hour, retracing the evening’s events, reliving some of the moments with relish, allowing herself to enjoy the victory in the quiet privacy the darkness allowed her. She thought about the way the team had looked at her at the end—the admiration and pride in their eyes. But most importantly, she saw the trust reflected in their faces. They
trusted
her and looked up to her, and that feeling was new and utterly satisfying.

Sam took a deep inhale, then exhaled a cleansing breath, feeling light and easy, and perhaps, most of all, confident. She turned back in the direction of the barracks, thinking maybe she’d take another hot shower. Let the steam surround her and release any residual tension from her tired muscles. She was already dreaming of how relaxing that hot shower would feel when a man’s silhouette stepped in front of her from the shadowed seam between the buildings.

“What are you doing out of quarters,
pisshead?”

Every muscle stiffened.

Alejandro.

“Just taking a smoke break,” she lied, hoping he’d just let her pass without incident.

“You don’t smoke,” he replied, stepping into the dull phosphorescence cast off by a distant lamp post.

Sam shrugged, unwilling to confirm or deny.

“I’ll ask you again. What are you doing out of quarters?” he asked, his voice low and threatening.

“I should ask you the same,” Sam replied, chin coming up in defiance as she looked up at him, refusing to show any deference.

Alejandro was easily a foot taller than her. She guessed he was at least fifty pounds heavier too, and packed solid with muscle. She felt a frisson of fear race down her spine as she realized she was trapped outside in the dead of night with the one guy in the world who’d take the most pleasure out of taking her down.
Especially
now that she’d beaten him in the last elimination round.

Alejandro watched her with eyes as black as onyx, the hate glittering in them clear as day. He wanted to hurt her. She could see it, feel the intention rolling off of him like waves.

Fight or flight?

The instinct reared its head and for the first time in her life, Sam felt her capability meet with the necessary reality of the situation. She lifted her head a fraction of an inch.

“You following me?” she asked, point blank.

“I don’t follow losers,” he replied in a taut voice.

“Seems to me the only loser tonight was you.”

Alejandro sneered, his handsome face menacing in the shadows. “There’s no way you’re going to the Challenge. I won’t allow it.”

“I don’t need you to allow it,” she pointed out calmly, watching as he paced closer. “It’s happening with or without you.”

Alejandro laughed softly, though the sound held no humor. He turned away from her, stepping to the side where he picked up a stone, tossing it into the woods. Sam heard the rustle as it shot through the trees and nearby bushes.

Sam took a step away from him, careful to keep her eyes on him. Alejandro picked up another stone. He hurled it hard and fast into the darkness. He had a hell of an arm—a pitch like a cannon. She wondered briefly if he’d played baseball.

“I throw a 90-mile-an-hour fastball,” he told her, reading her mind.

“Then why are you in ROTC? Shouldn’t you be pitching your rookie year somewhere?” she asked, hoping to distract him as she backed up another couple steps. Sam glanced at the barracks, looming dark in the distance. She had to be at least a hundred yards away.

Alejandro shook his head, turning to look at her. “That wasn’t the hand I got dealt.”

Sam eased backwards. “What are you talking about?”

Alejandro watched her, eyes narrowed. He picked up another rock, larger than the others—about the size of a baseball. He tossed it up, caught it smoothly without looking.

“I got caught doing some stupid shit when I was still a kid, trying to help my family. Nearly got sent to juvie,” he told her, tossing the rock up and catching it again. Like the weight of it was nothing. “The deal was, I go into ROTC. Straighten out my act. Make something of myself.”

Sam backed up another step. Alejandro watched her do it.

“I did all right,” he continued, tossing the rock in the air, higher this time. He caught it lazily, without looking, his coordination making the action look easy. “My record was expunged. Got an ROTC scholarship to go to college. Made it all the way here,” he said, gesturing around with his free hand. “Maybe I was even the best cadet they’d seen in a couple years.” Alejandro caught the stone. Curled it into his fist. “Until you.”

Sam didn’t realize she was holding her breath until he released the stone into the air and caught it again. He saw that he was making her nervous, and he liked it. She could see he enjoyed making her feel anxious, toeing the edge of afraid.

“This was going to be my ticket into the Rangers after college,” he told her, matter-of-fact. “Then Delta Force after that.”

“It still could be,” she murmured. “You’ve been in the top for nearly every trial.”

Alejandro shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Fight or flight?

Sam stepped back another couple paces, goose bumps rising along her arms again. This time they were not from the cold.

*

September—Late Saturday Night

Wes and Chris’s Apartment, Texas A&M

R O B E R T   W Y A T T

“Mr. Wyatt—what are
you doing here?” Wes asked, bewildered.

Robert Wyatt took advantage of the boy’s momentary uncertainty to step inside the door to his apartment. Robert watched Wes back up in surprise as he closed the door.

“Have a seat, Wes.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Have a seat, Wes,” Robert said again, nodding toward the messy kitchen table the kid had clearly been working at before he’d answered the door.

Wes shifted on his feet, making no move to sit, a look of defiance flaring in his eyes.

Robert nodded. Wes had a problem with taking orders. That much was obvious. Lacking a male role model engendered problems with authority—largely because a kid like Wes was unused to being told what to do by an older man. So when he was, he probably unconsciously resented it.

“Suit yourself.” Robert shrugged. He could make the boy sit, but he knew that would only make him ornery. Robert looked around the apartment, surprised and even a little impressed at how put together the small space was. The place definitely didn’t look like the typical bachelor pad of two college-aged boys. No neon beer signs and half-naked women on posters tacked up with duct tape.

“Why are you here?” Wes asked again, crossing his arms. The confusion in his tone was replaced with caution as he watched Robert assess his surroundings.

“I understand you’ve taken quite an interest in my daughter,” Robert told him, getting right to the point.

Wes’s soft laugh was as dry as crackled leaves. “Let me guess—you’re here to play the protective daddy act. Warn me off seeing your little girl.”

Now it was Robert’s turn to chuckle. “Not quite.”

He pulled a seat out at the end of the table, sitting down without being asked to, and gestured for Wes to do the same. Wes acquiesced slowly, flipping the chair so the back was to his front. His caution now morphed into a degree of cockiness, as he assumed he understood Robert’s intentions.

The kid had a set of balls on him, no doubt. Robert could see why Sam liked him, in addition to his good looks. Wes didn’t back down, and any guy who was going to make a play for his daughter had to have that quality—lest she run roughshod all over the poor bastard.

“You’re a talented guy, Wes,” Robert complimented. “I saw it the first time I looked at your photographs. And a guy like you, coming up from very little, knows how to hustle. You’ve got the makings of a successful man one day—you just need the right recipe and a decent break, don’t you?”

“How would you know?” Wes asked, somewhere between curious and offended. “You’re wearing a watch that probably cost as much as a semester at this place.”

“More, actually,” Robert replied with a casual smile. “And we have a little more in common than you think.”

“How do you figure?”

“I came up tough, too,” Robert admitted. “Just me and my daddy off a reservation in Oklahoma. He worked hard, had enough for the both of us wildcatting, but I had bigger dreams for us, and I was going to see that they happened. Sound familiar?”

“It’s a nice story, but what that hell does this have to do with why you’re at my place on a Saturday night. Your daughter isn’t even here.”

“I know exactly where my daughter is, Wes,” Robert replied, crossing his legs, posture relaxed. “My point is that I know what it takes to get this far, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember what I was willing to do to get here when I was your age.”

Realization lit Wes’s eyes. Robert watched him figure it out.

“You’re not here to warn me off of Samantha at all, are you?”

Robert smiled. “Son, I know all about the folly of warning a hot-to-trot boy off of a girl way out of his league. Hell, that’s exactly how I got Sammy’s mama to begin with. How else could a broke Cherokee sailor win the hand of a beautiful artist from a prominent Japanese family?” He shook his head. “No, I raised Sammy to make her own choices and make the best ones she can with the information she’s got, but she’s still a little bit of dreamer, isn’t she?”

Wes’s brow knit.

“She’s falling for your potential, Wes,” Robert clarified. “Sam’s been gifted with great vision. She sees the bigger picture, and she sees you, Wes. Like her mama saw me, Sam sees the man you want to be. She sees the man you’ve yet to become.”

Wes’s face remained impassive but his eyes gave him away. Too expressive, all that intensity too difficult for him to hide. And Robert saw that Wes knew he was right—that he’d suspected the same, only to have it confirmed by her father, of all people.

“I don’t care that you’re interested in my daughter, Wes,” Robert continued. “But I do care about protecting her, and it’s come to my attention that you’re trying to use her for a story.”

Understanding dawned in Wes’s eyes. Robert saw they were reading from the same hymnal now.

“Sasser,” Wes breathed. “You had Sasser cut my access.”

“Of course I did.” Robert smiled. “I understand you’re interested in profiling Sammy for an article?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”

“So you are.” Robert nodded, getting all the confirmation he needed. “I’m going to ask you this once, Wes. And keep in mind, I’m asking as a father who loves his daughter very much—please don’t write or attempt to publish any articles or photographs of Samantha. Now or ever.”

“Why?” Wes asked, tilting his head. “Seems to me that most parents would be delighted to see write-ups about their children in the paper.”

“Do I seem like most parents?” Robert replied, leaning back as he assessed the boy her daughter was falling for. “By using her to break a story, you’ll be pushing Samantha into a spotlight she doesn’t want. People will automatically make assumptions and judgements about everything she does. Anything my daughter excels at, people will wonder if she earned it rightfully or if she somehow bought or bartered her way into success. You must see this kind of exposure will only denigrate and vilify her in the long run.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do. I believe in her,” Wes replied.

“Really?” Robert asked, his brows rising. “Wes, you don’t know my daughter very well if you think she’s okay with you telling her story for the whole world to see.”

He saw a flash of discomfort in Wes’s expression and knew he’d hit bedrock.

“Samantha doesn’t trade on the Wyatt name, Wes—much to my everlasting disappointment,” Robert pointed out. “She wants to be seen for her accomplishments, for
her
wins. The playing field may never be level for her, Wes, but you leveraging her story to get your name out will make sure everyone knows it. And ultimately, it will only hurt her, and eventually, haunt her.”

Wes sat back, the wheels spinning.

“I care about her, Mr. Wyatt,” he told Robert, his tone earnest, though his expression remained defiant. “There’s nothing I would do to hurt Samantha.”

“What I’m talking about will inadvertently hurt her, Wes,” Robert corrected. “You know that now. You just hadn’t realized all the ramifications before.”

Wes’s eyes dropped to the manila envelope Robert had set down on the kitchen table when he’d arrived.

“What’s in the envelope?” the kid asked.

“A few things.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Are you agreeing to my request as a father not to publish any stories of Sam?” Robert asked in return.

Wes stared at him. “If I don’t?”

“I’ve gotten where I am partly because I’m a good judge of character, Wes,” Robert remarked, sitting back. “There are carrot guys, and there are stick guys—you’re definitely the former.”

Robert picked up the envelope casually and pulled out a handful of photos. Wes’s photos. He had maybe twenty different shots—from abstracts to journalistic shots he’d gotten from his investigator. The boy was talented. It was obvious. But there were plenty of talented starving artists out there in the world.